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Pretty much all Motherboards have a Header (group of pins) that are for the front panel buttons and lights, (hdd light, power light, power button and reset button.) all you have to do is "jump" (short) the two pins for power momentarily and the computer will spring to life.

If you power button is broken, after you get it powered up go to the BIOS and set "Power On after Failure" or similar wording to ON... that way you can always turn your computer back on after shutting down by unplugging the power for a few seconds and plugging it back in.

Yeah, good luck with that. I tried moving a dell mobo to another case and dell have proprietary pin outs which they do not share with the world, so I couldn't figure it out after weeks of trying. Even their power supply plugs to the mobo are non-standard.

Pretty much all Motherboards have a Header (group of pins) that are for the front panel buttons and lights, (hdd light, power light, power button and reset button.) all you have to do is "jump" (short) the two pins for power momentarily and the computer will spring to life.

If you power button is broken, after you get it powered up go to the BIOS and set "Power On after Failure" or similar wording to ON... that way you can always turn your computer back on after shutting down by unplugging the power for a few seconds and plugging it back in.

I've seen some systems from Dell & Gateway that have that ridiculous plastic arm that pushes an actual button on the mobo too.

Why anyone would replace the board in a proprietary system with a board from a different proprietary system is beyond me.

If the OP paid anything at all for that Dell board, he got fit on.

I probably have a couple of AMD boards in my Gomi pile for that matter...

I recently bought a dell optiplex 740 motherboard to replace my old motherboard.

The problem is that my desktop computer (a gateway desktop) have a different power button.

I would like to know if there is a way to turn on the motherboard without the power button.

I have seen some videos of powering on the motherboard but in this motherboard it doesn't look like the videos.

This isn't as hard as it sounds.

Trace the wires from your front panel. Generally, Dell has 3 pairs of wires: 1 for the power button, 1 for the power LED, and 1 for the HDD activity LED. The only pair you're truly worried about here is the power button. The pair is color-coded and will be immediately obvious when you remove the faceplate.

From there, grab a small screwdriver (standard or Phillips - doesn't matter). Power OFF the machine. Locate the front panel header on the motherboard. Position is variable, but generally near the bottom of the case toward the front of the unit. The plastic around the header block is frequently blue or green. It will have between 6 and 9 pins, possibly with a NO CONNECT at the end of the top row.

Connect power. Using the screwdriver, short each of the four sets of pins in the header block. Nothing will happen if short the pins for the LEDs. When you find the pair of pins that controls the power, the unit will turn on. Make a note of the pair of power pins, turn off the computer, and remove power.

Using a small, pointed object (I use the awl on my Swiss army knife), carefully remove the pins on the power wires you identified in Step 1. They are held in the quick connect block by a small spring clip that's part of the female pin assembly. Gently pressing that spring clip in while gently pulling on the wire will remove the entire assembly from the connector block.

Cover the bare metal with electrical tape or heat-shrink tubing. Place each of the power button wires over one of the power pins on the motherboard. It doesn't matter which is which; unlike the LED pins, the power pins aren't polarized.

Reconnect power and press the power button on the front panel. If all is well, the unit will turn on.

There are a handful of Dell models where this won't work. On those, the power is controlled by a microswitch on a daughterboard near the front panel. This board is NOT connected to the main motherboard via wires, but by a direct connection. If you don't have the right motherboard, the daughterboard won't connect, and that switch won't work.

With a bit of hacking, you might be able to rig an external power switch ... but don't attempt that if you're not 1000000% comfortable taking a soldering iron to your motherboard.

As they say close but no cigar. The Dell optiplex sseries does not have a few sets of pins that are easy to trace as others have stated. These boards have a 40 pin header that takes a cable and connects to a front panel control board that has the power button, speaker jack, mic jack, 2 usb ports and the diagnostic lights. These boards are really designed to only be used in Dell cases. If you really need to use it in your Gateway case then you need to get the front panel board and cable which is available from Ebay for less than $10. Here is a link to one.

I fail to see what is so complex here. Regardless of how many pins the header has, 2 of them are the power switch. A few minutes of testing or research would tell you what pins they are. On an Optiplex with a 34 pin Header that would be pins 19 and 20, I'm sure a few minutes on google could return the results on this particular board.

However one could just as quickly figure it out with a paperclip. With the unit powered off, systematically jump each of the pins 2 at a time until it powers one. You can't do any harm to any components this way. Then enter the Bios and set power state after failure to ON. If neccesary to shut the system down the power cord or swith on your surge protector removes and re-applys power causing the system to power on.

1st Post

Had a problem with a Dell Vostro 230 power switch button. As you said @ JaredBaxley , %uFEFFa few minutes of testing, and I found the pins. However the pins were not next to each other. Assuming red wire leads to pin 1, shorting pins 2 and 6 turned it on. The take away is that they were not next to each other. Just FYI.

Anyways,

Hope this helps someone.

Edit: I know this thread is old, but maybe it will help someone search for a solution to this same problem.